


Airport

by QSF



Series: Crossroads [2]
Category: Kamen Rider Kuuga, Kamen Rider OOO
Genre: Gen, post Kuuga, pre OOO
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2014-06-01
Updated: 2014-06-01
Packaged: 2018-01-27 20:41:44
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,792
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/1721900
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/QSF/pseuds/QSF
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Godai Yuusuke was leaving home.<br/>Eiji Hino was returning home.</p><p>Sometimes you just need to talk a little.</p><p>(This takes place a few years after the end of Kuuga, and a year before the beginning of OOO. Inspired by a friend's suggestion. Set in the same universe as my Kuuga and OOO fics.)</p>
            </blockquote>





	Airport

The airport in Cairo was as busy as they came, and Godai liked it quite a bit. It had been a while since he had been to Africa last, and this was always a great way to enter the continent. There were enough regular flights back and forth from Japan to make it somewhat cheap, and from here you could catch a flight to nearly anywhere on the continent. Right now he had no idea where, he had gone here on a whim, because he needed to get out of Tokyo again.

He couldn't stay. Not after the business with Tsukasa. Ichijou would understand that, or at least he hoped that he would once he read the note.

Maybe it wasn't fair to skip town like that, but he knew that if he had told Ichijou to his face, then he would have talked him into staying. They had been together for enough years that, by now, Godai had to admit that... well; it got harder to leave every time. But he needed to keep moving. Over ten years together and he hadn't been able to stop. Sometimes he wondered how Ichijou put up with him when he was out of the country half the time, but somehow they had made it work.

Bit by bit, brick by brick they had built themself a life together. A life that had left Godai feeling like he really had a home to return to, and not just a place where he could put down his rucksack. A home with someone waiting, and yes, he missed Ichijou like he'd had cut off a hand every time he left, but at the same time... this was a loneliness he craved. The anonymity. Being able to just fade into the shadows. His... brother as he had come to think of him was Kuuga enough for all worlds though he didn't believe it, nobody would notice if Godai Yuusuke took a few years off and just lived. If only Ichijou could take the time off and join him, but being promoted had made him busier than ever.

But not too busy to phone, and Godai smiled a little sheepishly as he spotted the familiar caller id.

"I'm sorry," he said, scratching the short beard he had been experimenting with. Ichijou kept looking bemused, but he didn't seem to mind it much in bed. Rather the opposite. "I just needed to get some fresh air."

"A note?" Ichijou's was filled with enough familiar exasperation that Godai could picture his face. "Couldn't you at least have waited until I got home?"

"Then I wouldn't have been able to leave," Godai admitted with a soft laugh. "But I couldn't stay either." He played a bit with the straw to his coke; he had taken refuge in an airport McDonald's to have some time to think. Sometimes being surrounded by people that didn't know him was the kind of loneliness that he needed.

"It's not as if I wouldn't have understood. I was there. You did the right thing," the voice on the other end of the line assured. "You had no choice."

"I know." Actually Godai didn't know that, but the lie was familiar enough by now. "And now I need to live with it. I will be back, you know, I promised you that. I will always be back. And I remembered my phone this time."

"Where are you anyway? I tried to reach you for hours."

"I'm sorry, I'm in Cairo. I turned it off on the plane." He kept flipping the straw between his fingers like a baton, catching the eye of a small girl a table away. She smiled brightly at him.

"Cairo?"

"I thought I'd travel up the Nile and see where it takes me." He kept playing with the straw, but over the girl's shoulder he spotted a young man limping into the restaurant. Limping heavily. Looking over his shoulder. Asian. Japanese? He had the look.

"There's civil unrest in the south, at least be careful".

"There's always civil unrest somewhere," Godai said with a small sigh. "And you shouldn't worry so much. It takes more than a bullet to kill me." The young man had stopped once he got inside, looking as if he wasn't sure whether he should stand in line or not.

"One day someone will prove you wrong, you know..."

"I'm fine now. Tsubaki backed me up on that." He ran a hand over his stomach, pressing lightly against the amadam resting there. "I just need to stop thinking for a while..." When he looked up again, the young man was still standing there, eyes distant, slowly folding in on himself.

"Fine..." the admission came with a quiet crackle. "But please, stay in touch this time."

"I promise," Godai said, already on his feet. "But I have to run now."

"Be careful," were the last words before the connection broke, and Godai pushed the phone into his pocket.

He was just fast enough to steady the young man before he toppled over in a dead faint.

"Careful," Godai said in English, echoing Ichijou's words, though this kid needed it more than he did.

"Sorry..." the reply was accented, and the young man didn't resist as Godai led him over to his corner and sat him down.

"Are you Japanese?" Godai thought the accent fitted, the looks certainly did. The man was younger than he had thought at first, just a kid, late teens maybe.

"Yes, I'm sorry...." the kid made an awkward attempt at bowing, though he was sitting down and only managed to almost fall off the chair.

"Wait here." Godai made the words as stern as he could. "I'm going to get you something to drink before you faint on me. You're not diabetic, are you?"

"No," the unkempt hair swayed when the kid shook his head. "I was... hurt. Recently. I'm just out of the hospital."

"Good. Wait here then." Luckily the lines were not too long, he bought an entire meal just in case the kid was hungry as well, if not, Godai could always finish it off.

Since he became Kuuga food had been... optional. He was almost always at least peckish, but once, as an experiment he hadn't eaten for a week before the lack off effect on him frightened him enough to start. Hopefully he would never have to find out how far he could push the amadam's regenerative capacities.

"So," he said with a wide and easy smile once he sat down in front of the desolate looking young man "I'm Godai Yuusuke, just got here from Tokyo."

"Hino Eiji." The reply was bereft of any colour, the kid looking down at the food in front of him before reaching for the coke. "I guess I'm going home to Japan, Mr Godai."

"Just Godai is fine." He didn't like the way the hands gripped the mug as if they were afraid of crushing the thin paper. "What do your friends call you?"

"Eiji," the smile was small and shy, but held a warmth that made Godai smile again. "Hino is my mother's maiden name. I took it instead of my father's, I... we... I suppose we don't get along so well."

"Are you here with your family?" That question had not been the right one to ask, the kid flinched hard enough to almost spill the drink.

"No." Just a single small word.

"Is that why you are going back to Japan then? Because you've been sick?"

"Not sick." Steel. For a moment there was steel under the quiet surface, then it dissipated into a sad smile. "I got injured."

"An accident?" Godai remembered far too many motorcycle accidents he had been in himself, roads and rules were sometimes optional in these parts of the world.

"No." Another short answer, but after a moment's pause he glanced up at Godai, very quickly. "War."

"I'm sorry."

There was a little pause then, as they both let the words sink in. Now Godai could add up the dots. The strange distance in the kid's eyes. The way his hands shook when he didn't focus on keeping them still. The way he flinched when someone banged their tray a little too hard against the table. War. Had he been caught up in it? Was he an aid worker or maybe even a missionary? The first was somewhat likely, the second one less so. Of course he could have been a soldier, but that was the most unlikely alternative of all. This Eiji kid wasn't a fighter.

"Are you here alone?" Godai finally asked, keeping his voice soft as he scratched his beard again.

"No, I..." the kid looked back over his shoulder. "My father sent some of his bodyguards. They are probably looking for me. I..."

"Do you want them to find you?" Because if not, there were always ways, and Godai had a feeling this kid might need a friend.

"I... I guess it doesn't matter. The plane leaves in three hours and I just couldn't stand the VIP lounge anymore."

"Travelling first class?"

"My father always does."

"And you?"

"There are better things to spend money on." The shrug was the first movement he had made in minutes.

"Is that why you were here?" Godai hazarded a guess; he had read something about some volunteer project ending up in the middle of a civil war. Was this kid one of the workers?

"I just wanted to help." Toneless words. "And instead I messed everything up."

"You wanted to help." Godai spoke the words with conviction. "That's what matters here."

"You don't even know..." Eiji folded in a little on himself, the mug cradled in his hands.

"Do you want to tell me?"

"What would it matter..."

"Maybe you're right there. Maybe it won't. What matters is what you do next."

"There's... I don't even..."

"Listen to me," Godai said with his calmest voice. "I can see that you have been through something horrible. I can understand that. And I can understand that right now you feel that you can't ever move forward again. But you will."

"How..." There was real desperation in Eiji's eyes, looking for an answer. Any answer.

"Simple." Godai smiled brightly. "Little by little. You said you made a mistake. Fine. Mistakes are things you are meant to learn from."

"People are dead. I can't bring them back."

"You're right. And it's okay to feel awful about that." There was a mound of corpses stacked in his shadow as well, on mad days he could almost smell them.

"I... I brought it on them."

"Did you kill them?" The question was gentle.

"No, but I might as well have."

"Would they tell you that?"

"She..." The mug shook so hard that Eiji had to put it down.

"Listen to me." Godai reached up and wrapped those shaking hands in his own calloused ones, keeping hold of them though they tried to jerk away at first before relenting. "Breathe with me."

"What?"

"Just let the breath out first. Then breathe in. Use your stomach instead of your chest."

"I..."

"Shhh... just push it out as you breathe in. With me now. And then out."

It took a little to bring the kid down from the brink of the panic attack, but Godai was in no hurry. He had time. He had been there himself when he was younger, though never hit that badly. At least he had been spared the helplessness of being a bystander. When he had been fighting the Grongi he had actually been fighting them. He hadn't just watched people die, like this kid had. He could see it in his eyes, the same panic that he'd seen in so many during the Grongi wars. Humans... were not dissimilar, and the deaths they caused were very much the same. And this kid didn't have an Ichijou.

But eventually his hands stopped shaking.

"Thank you." Eiji looked a little bit sheepish, but a lot less like he was going to just hide under the table and not come out again. "I'm sorry..."

"No need to be," Godai assured. "Sometimes we all need a little help."

"I tried to do that. Help them." This time the kid's voice didn't crack.

"Sometimes, things don't turn out the way we plan."

"I know." Eiji ran both hands over his face. "My father thought that this was idiocy, but..." He didn't continue, just reached down and picked up the hamburger with a look of determination on his face.

"Do you agree with him?"

"No." There was no hesitation there, and Godai couldn't stop the smile.

"Good. Because it's never wrong trying to help someone, even if it doesn't work the way you planned to."

"He thinks it's humanitarian nonsense. It's a good show for the press, but..."

"Then don't listen to him."

"That's easier said than done."

"Then talk to him."

"Again, not easy..."

"What do you want to do then?" Godai asked the question thoughtfully, keeping an eye on the kid's face,

"I don't even know." Eiji looked away, fidgeting a little on the chair.

"That's fine. You don't need to have an answer now; you just need to think about it."

"But I used to know. I was so sure I was right, and I was so wrong. How can I be sure I'll get it right the next time?"

"You can't. But you have to try. If you're afraid to fail big, then start small."

"Small?"

"You don't have to save a country if you can only save a village. You don't have to save a village if you can only save a person. And you don't have to save a person's life, sometimes it's enough to bring a smile back to someone's face to save them."

"That's...." But there was a hint of a smile there that warmed Godai's heart, even if it only was because the kid thought he was cheesy.

"If you think I am wrong, you can tell me," he assured.

"You're not... wrong, I suppose." The admission was followed by a sheepish smile, a proper one. "I just... I mean I had the money to help more than that."

"You did?"

"Or, well, my father did... but I..." Eiji let out a small breath. "I'm not sure he'd fund something like that again. It was hard enough to talk him into it the first time."

"Do you need his money to do good?"

"I..." there was a moment of hesitation. "I... honestly don't know. It's always been there."

"Think about it. You don't need money to be a good man"

"But what am I supposed to do?"

"Do anything you want." Godai gestured towards the counter. "Get a job. Just any job. Figure out how to be happy again. Who you want to be. Money never helped with that."

"Tell that to my family..."

"No, you should tell them." Godai looked the kid in the eyes. "Because it's your life. Your choices."

Eiji was quiet for a little, and then he nodded. "Maybe you're right." He pushed back the chair, standing up. "I should get back. They are probably worried."

"Should they be?" Godai had stood up as well, watching the kid for any signs that he might do something stupid, like killing himself.

"No. I just... needed some time alone."

"And then I came and disturbed you." Godai laughed.

"It's okay, really," Eiji assured. "You've been really helpful."

"I'm glad." Godai was glad that the kid seemed steadier when they shook hands. "Just one final piece of advice it took me a long time to learn."

"Always bring clean underwear?" The laugh was awkward, but it was a laugh so Godai joined it.

"No, but that's a good one too. I was going to say that if you want to protect other people's smiles, don't forget that you have to protect your own as well."

"That's...." Eiji pulled his hand back and looked down. "I'll remember that."

"You do. And good luck."

"Safe travels to you as well."

Godai kept looking at the kid as he limped off, wondering if he had ever been that young. Probably. Years before he met Ichijou, when he had to worry about nothing but himself. And now he had... more than that.

Now he was older. Life was different.

Maybe his trip would be shorter this time. Maybe he'd find his way back to japan in a few weeks instead of months. Maybe he could surprise Ichijou. Put a smile on his lips again.

And on his own. Love was a funny thing. He hoped the kid would find someone eventually. Maybe that would fill the holes inside him.


End file.
